Ratfish generates social media buzz on Vancouver Island

An odd-looking fish spotted on Vancouver Island lit up social media this week.

On Tuesday, Campbell River area resident Rachel Bell posted images of the shark-like creature – which has since been identified as a ratfish, a glowing and boneless specimen normally found deep under the sea – to social media.

In the photos, the two-foot long fish appears to be writhing around in shallow water on a sandy beach. It has bulging turquoise-coloured eyes and white spots covering its long, slender rat-like tail.

More than 70 people from the Facebook community soon responded, most of them in agreement that it was a ratfish or spotted ratfish, known among scientists as Hydrolagus colliei.

Some also suggested “nuclear fish,” “Godzilla baby” and “alien fish that’s supposed to be in the dark deep depths of the ocean.”

Dr. Jim Powell, a fish expert and CEO of the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences in Campbell River, examined the photos for the Mirror and confirmed what dozens of online observers already knew: it’s a ratfish.

“Hydrolagus colliei,” said Powell after viewing the images on Wednesday.

“It’s a male,” he said, pointing to a set “claspers” protruding from its underside.

The ratfish, a relative to the shark, has a skeleton made of cartilage – it “doesn’t have a bone in its body,” he said. It’s not a very common sight on the shore, because it’s a deep-water fish.

The species doesn’t have a swim bladder, so if it doesn’t swim, it sinks, he said.

He declined to speculate on how it ended up on the beach, but said it might have something to do with its health or age.

Powell, a scuba diver, said the glowing fish are often spotted underwater at night.

“They’re beautiful, to see them underwater and see them swimming,” he said. “They’re just gorgeous because of their iridescence and that large eye, and they really do glow.”

The spotted ratfish is the only type of chimaera in Canadian Pacific fisheries waters, according to a shark conservation plan published by Fisheries and Oceans Canada in 2007.

“Ratfish are a common bycatch (about 700 tonnes per year) within the commercial trawl fishery for skates,” a type of ray, according to the document. “Since ratfish are of no commercial value, they are discarded at sea.”

The chimaera are also called ghost sharks. The earliest chimaera fossil specimen, a skull, is dated to about 280 million years ago, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.